E162 | Training Your Mind to Break World Records (w/ Neil Agius)

Neil Agius is a Maltese former Olympian and world record-breaking ultra long-distance swimmer. Neil has completed some of the longest unassisted open-water swims in history, including record-breaking crossings between Sicily and Malta and a 142km non-stop world record in 2024. Most recently Neil completed the Gozo 7, swimming around the island of Gozo 7 times in 7 days. 

Expect to learn: 

- What it takes physically and psychologically to swim for 24 - 60 + hours 

- The role of micro-goals, radical acceptance, visualisation, breathwork

- How a sense of purpose and social connection can sustain performance when the body is nearly depleted

- The importance of embracing failure, persistence, and much more.

You can find out more about Neil here: https://neilagius.com/

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Interviewed by Dr. Alex Curmi. Dr. Alex is a consultant psychiatrist and a UKCP registered psychotherapist in-training.

Check out The Thinking Mind Blog on Substack: https://substack.com/home/post/p-174371597

If you would like to invite Alex to speak at your organisation please email alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Speaking Enquiry" in the subject line.

Alex is not currently taking on new psychotherapy clients, if you are interested in working with Alex for focused behaviour change coaching , you can email - alexcurmitherapy@gmail.com with "Coaching" in the subject line.

Give feedback here - thinkingmindpodcast@gmail.com Follow us here: Twitter @thinkingmindpod Instagram @thinkingmindpodcast

Transcript

Speaker: [00:00:00] The space beyond comfort and success is where all the magic happens. Where you're at this ultimate space of ultimate learning,

Speaker 2: prove to the world that he's got resilience, that not many other human beings can come close to. 

Speaker 3: Whenever I 

Speaker: start something so big, I'm always a different person. A few weeks after, if not immediately after, because you were there, you saw it. Something like this can not change you. 

Speaker 3: Welcome back. Today's conversation is one I've really been looking forward to.

As you guys know, I'm endlessly fascinated by the relationship between performance and our psychology or our mental health. How these things feed into each other, how neglecting one can undermine the others, and how when we can get these factors aligned, they can really help each one of us make the most of our potential.

And that's really one of the core things this podcast is about. [00:01:00] Today I'm joined by Neil La Juice. He's an ultra endurance swimmer, environmental advocate, and world record holder. Neil first captured our attention in 2018 when he swam 70 kilometers around the island of Malta. In 22 hours. A year later, he swam around Gozo, the sister island of Malta.

In 2020, he became the second person ever to swim from Sicily to Malta in a record breaking 28 hours. In 2021, he completed 125 kilometer swim from Sicily to Gozo, which at the time was the longest continuous swim ever recorded. And then in 2024, he broke his own world record again, swimming 142 kilometers in open sea.

Most recently, in September, 2025, he completed the Gozo seven. Swimming around Gozo seven times in seven days. Neil and I both grew up in Malta, so for me it's an enormous privilege to get to learn from someone who's inspired so many, and obviously for me it's [00:02:00] not just about the world records and the distance, it's also about the psychology, because between any of us and our goals, there's usually some resistance, some lethargy, some doubt.

That voice that says we can't do it today, it's easy to assume someone like Neil simply doesn't have that voice, but as will explore darkness, fatigue, confronting your own limits, that's all part of this process. And perhaps that might be even in large part the point of what Neil is trying to do here. In today's conversation, we explore how Neil discovered his aptitude for the extreme, what it really takes physically and psychologically to swim for 24 hours, 40 hours, 60 hours.

The role of micro goals, radical acceptance, visualization, breath work. How a sense of purpose and social connection can sustain your performance when your body feels so depleted, the importance of embracing failure, the importance of persistence, and much more, I think [00:03:00] you're gonna find today's conversation inspiring and surprisingly practical and applicable to everyday life.

As always, if you do like this podcast, you can share it with a friend. Leave us a review or rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or whatever platform you're listening on. Feel free to give us some feedback at Thinking Mind podcast@gmail.com or any of our social media channels. I am also doing more behavior change coaching with clients, which is honestly one of my favorite kinds of work to do.

So if you're feeling stuck in a particular area of your life, whether that's career, relationships, perhaps even a existential crisis, you can feel free to reach out to me and there's details as to how to do that in the description. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening, and now here's today's conversation with Neil Aju.

Thanks so much for joining me. 

Speaker: I'm looking forward to this. 

Speaker 3: I'm really interested in the [00:04:00] relationship between performance and mental health, so listeners of the podcast will know we talk about. Mental health, but also self development. You know how you can use certain ideas or techniques to improve the quality of your life.

That could be the way your body works, the way your mind works, what you're capable of, like achieving. Obviously this is something I can tell you. You're interested from looking at your work, inspiring to learn more about your trajectory as an athlete, and to see the way you consistently push past those limits.

It makes me think, you know, what about me or or the listeners of the podcast, what could they do with their lives? Maybe to start, you know, I know you've been a professional swimmer for a long time, but in terms of this ultra long distance swimming, how did that start for you? 

Speaker: Um, let's just go back a bit.

I'm not really a professional swimmer. It's like, uh. My, uh, hobby, um, that has turned into what it is today. And the beautiful thing about it is there's no, that's what I wanna do and that's where I want to be. Mm-hmm. It's the next step automatically [00:05:00] leads into the next stage of my life. 

Speaker 3: That was something I was gonna ask about actually.

So where you're at now, you've done many ultra long distance swims, you've broken world records. Was this not the plan? It wasn't the plan to get here, or was it more one step at a time for you? 

Speaker: There was no plan for me to be an ultra distance swimmer. It was me coming from a swimming pool background Olympian in 2004, long time ago now.

And I just thought it'll be before I retire and stop swimming. It'll be cool to swim around Malta, my island, the island that we live on, but I think it was just like, kind of tick the boxes, like multiple national record holder Olympians, swim around your own country. Cool, cool, cool. Nice. Done, done. There was no, there was no further planned in that it was actually.

Uh, even when I finished the first swim swimming around Malta, there was no plan after that. It was, it was a very difficult experience because I prepared myself physically, but I did not prepare myself mentally and emotionally for it. So 

Speaker 3: take me through, what was that first swim like for 

Speaker: you? That, I mean, [00:06:00] that's how raw I was or unaware of what ultra actually means.

So swimming around Malta took me 22 hours. It's 70 kilometers for the people listening who, who aren't sure. And when things got tough physically, it started to push over onto the mentally, obviously the mindset kind of things. And I was just spiraling within thoughts and not aware or not, don't have the tools to be able to get myself out of it.

So the limiting beliefs are just building up and building up and building up and building up and just kind of the only thing that got me through it was I. As I said, I'd do it. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. What kind of thoughts are going through your head in those moments? 

Speaker: I, I mean, every swim is different, right? So in, in, in that swim, it was some time ago, but it was, this is stupid.

Why am I doing it? Doesn't make sense. What a stupid idea, and you're so tired. Why don't you just stop? But no, [00:07:00] you shouldn't stop. You know, a lot of these, uh, very loud voice in your, in your head, and it can, it can change who you are a a lot. You know, it it that voice, our own voice, our own mind. It's such a complex thing that it has the power to really push you to, to the end of what you think you can do.

Speaker 3: I guess one through line that I've seen when listening to you talk about your work is this idea that your mind is gonna try and convince you to stop even though you have way more left in the tank, as you start to do these longer swims. How are people around you reacting to you making these kinds of attempts?

Speaker: I mean, now they've kind of come on board now they're used to it. Yes, yes, definitely. But I wouldn't have managed without them to begin with because when the, the next swim that I wanted to do after swimming around Malta was swim from Sicily to Malta. And, uh, a friend of mine who we didn't know, we knew each other, but not [00:08:00] that well.

I used to, I teach his, his son how to swim and he's like, do you have a plan for swimming from Sicily to malt? I'm like, yeah, we're gonna get on a boat drive there. I'm gonna jump in the sea and we're gonna come back. And he's like, no, we, you need a plan. You, you can't just go there and jump in the sea and swim back.

Safety right. And the crew is gonna need to rest. It's gonna take you longer. It's gonna be your first overnight, it's first time swimming between two countries. So they helped me grow and then I helped them grow. And it's kind of, we are both where we are today because of these swims as well. 

Speaker 3: Uh, how do you even train physically for these kinds of events?

Speaker: Learning through the experience. So what, what happened in the first swim that I felt like I didn't have anymore or what, that I needed more of or that could be better and could be improved for next time. Again, this wasn't like this now it is now when I'm swimming. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: I'm, my shoulders are getting tired when I'm swimming.

The sixth lap around goes. So I'm like, okay. Then the strength and conditioning training that I was doing, I should have kept it doing it for a [00:09:00] little bit longer because, um, my muscles are now fatigued so they, that needs more work or the swimming ability, you know, so it's all different. Fine tuning. I don't, I don't follow anyone's program.

This is my creation of what I feel I need, but also at the moment, it's come to the point where is there need for more swimming training? Because I, when I'm swimming, I can. Feel the, the fatigue coming in no matter how much I prepare for it. But you, you've, there are tools and techniques I can use to push parts, that boundary and it, then it comes a lot mentally.

But after the swim I can, I'll be recovered in two, three days at a swim. You see me on my knees at the end of a swim. Yeah. Thinking like it's the worst thing that could he could be doing. Yeah. But two days later, I'm, I'm back to normal. The, the parts that are not recovering is me being in the salt water for so long.

So the inside of my mouth is full of ulcers and cuts. My nose will be bleeding for days, like pieces of skin coming [00:10:00] outta my nose. And, and so do I need to train more or am I training enough and I need to focus more on the mental side of things. 'cause that's where it all comes in, into my physical capacity is in a jar and I cannot improve that.

Once it gets to a hundred percent, this is my body that I have and that's it. Physical capacity and then how much can I train my mind? To get that a hundred percent physical capacity times 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 

Speaker 3: So, so you're saying that in the last few swims, yes. You're making fine tuning to the, to certain aspects of your physical capabilities with weight training or what have you.

But really the most growth you've seen is in the mental side. 

Speaker: Yes. Because, uh, if you, your mind's capable of, uh, making you achieve things you're not capable of doing, but can also make you fail at things you are capable of doing. We have to train it Well and it's trainable, right? Everything's trainable.

Speaker 3: Absolutely. I think, I think people are run into trouble because it's very abstract. You know, when people think about [00:11:00] their thoughts or their emotions or their feelings, it's not something concrete that you can touch. Um, but I've held the belief for quite a long time, and we talk about quite a lot on the podcast that your thoughts are very convincing.

And really if you don't study it and train alternative methods of dealing with your mind, you can really be imprisoned by your mind in lots of ways. Thoughts come up. And they're very convincing. A thought comes up like, perhaps in the middle of a swim for you, I, I can't do this. And when that thought comes up, it kind of possesses you in some sense.

And it makes you feel if you're not trained, that's the reality for all intents and purposes. 

Speaker: Yeah. I, I think it's, let's remove from the swim in my everyday life. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Every day when I'm waking up in the morning at two in the morning to go swim in the middle of the night, there's no time that my mind isn't telling me, oh, stay in bed.

It's warm, it's raining outside, you don't need to go. It's okay not to go. And, and I don't think for everyone, it's, they need to study the mind. I think they need to pick up on things that can help [00:12:00] them right in their every day and create a practice that helps them. Understand what the trigger points are and what they need to do to, to change these trigger points.

Yeah. So, so it's not a question of like, it might not be everyone's thing to study the mind or to understand mindset and whatnot, but all they need to do is follow a few tips and tricks that they can do that help them. And everyone is very different, right? Mm-hmm. So it's not like one size fits all. 

Speaker 3: I mean, there is that, that feeling of, that you just mentioned.

The, I don't feel like it's feeling, 

Speaker: but it's, it's still every day or 

Speaker 3: every day. It's the main thing that stands between a person and the life that they want is really, can you push past that feeling? You know, if I think about my own life, anything that I've gotten that's worthwhile has required me to, at some point have that feeling and ignore it and, and push through it.

But I would imagine maybe 

Speaker: that's what, that's what makes it worthwhile though, that it's difficult is what Mo Mo what, what motivates you and what then the motivation will [00:13:00] fade away. And then it's what the discipline is that Yeah. Um, keeps you going. 

Speaker 3: I would imagine a lot of people might look at you where you're at now.

Maybe they're not familiar with, you know, your whole trajectory, and they might think, I don't think Neil has that feeling of, I don't feel like it, but can you like, uh, dispel that illusion for people? 

Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely. I think I have multiple moments in my day where I might not feel like doing something or fi find it difficult to do something, or I'm in the middle of a session and I'm actually really enjoying my swim and really into it and really swimming well, that can change instantly.

Mm-hmm. Instantly, like from hero to zero. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Instantly. And then once you're at zero, it's like you, you have a wet blanket on you and it doesn't come off that easily, and you're trying to find the end of this blanket and. And you can't. And you can't. And it's not that easy. But also, like one of the biggest things that changed my perception of it, this is like, it's okay to do things you don't like to do.

It's okay to do things that are shit and that are not always [00:14:00] fun because even if you love it, and I love swimming and I, it's my most favorite thing to do in the world. There are days I don't wanna do it, and that's okay, but I'm gonna do it because I know that I love doing it. And we, you know, as we get older, especially, we start to change our circles and our ways and what we do.

We only do things we like to do because that's what we deserve to do. Now I'm 30, now I'm 40. You know what, if I don't like it, I'm not gonna do it. 

Speaker 3: We get in the comfort zone, 

Speaker: but then that starts to create this like, uh, bubble that you are creating, creating around yourself. We do it a lot with children as well.

You know, keeping them in a bubble, not letting them have any. Uh, difficulty within their day, within their week, within their first 10 years of life. And then we come to work, we're in an office, and all of a sudden your boss is kind of pressuring you to to do something or requiring something of you. And because you've put yourself in this bubble, then you are very frail because you're 

Speaker 3: never testing yourself.

Speaker: Because to be [00:15:00] resilient, you need to do tough shit. And for children to be not have a panic attack or anxiety, they have to be subdued to difficult things whilst they're growing up and let them figure it out. Because if you've never done it before, if I've never swam before and someone put me in the middle of the scene, pitch black at night, then I'm gonna be freaking out.

Speaker 3: I mean, this is what all the psychological science shows, which is anxiety is one. For people who don't know, anxiety is one of the most treatable things psychologically, uh, within mental health. The key is that you need to expose yourself to that thing that makes you anxious in small doses, but consistently, if you do it, you know, too rapidly, you get overwhelmed, as you said.

But if you never get exposed to an anxiety inducing situation, you're just gonna get more and more scared. People who stay in the house, they become agoraphobic. They become afraid of going outside. So 

Speaker: question, so is, but isn't stress, or isn't anxiety? Anxiety, whether it [00:16:00] is anxiety to jump in the sea at night, or anxiety to stand up and speak in front of a crowd?

Mm-hmm. It's the same stressor, it's the same chemical reaction that's happening. 

Speaker 3: Uh, more, more or less. So it's obviously can occur in like different situations, but it's the same process physiologically, and you treat it the same way, you know? 

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I work a lot with, um, in my sessions that I'm doing in the breath work and storytelling workshops that I give, it's that we are creating intense, stressful situations and helping them breed through it in real time.

So like, they have ice trays in front of them, so every time they, at moments they put their hands in the ice trays and it's very intense, very cold water. The heart rate starts to go up, I don't like it. I wanna get my hands out. It hurts. So we are then teaching them how to breed through it in, in real time, and that's kind of is what's changing the baselines of their trigger points.

Speaker 3: Absolutely. So you're making the, I guess you are using breath to make their physiology more resilient Yeah. In those, in those high stress [00:17:00] moments. 

Speaker: Yeah. And putting them in a real life situation. 

Speaker 3: At what point during your swims did you start to realize, okay, I need to start doing things proactively for my mental health in the midst of these swims?

Speaker: Uh, it kind of all started after I failed and I, we didn't complete the Majorca swim. Okay. Because I went into the America Swim as a world record holder for swims fifth one on coming up thinking that it, like nothing ever goes wrong, everything's going to be as it should, everything's gonna go as it should go.

I prepared for it. I sacrificed everything physically, mentally, emotionally for it. I'm gonna do the swim. And then I wasn't put in a situation where it was too intense. It was, I was stranded in the middle of, uh, jellyfish 60 stings, 70 stings, three hours of swimming through them. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: Um, no longer safe for me to, to continue, but it got me to a place of understanding that I actually, I know nothing.

'cause even though I had to stop for [00:18:00] safety reasons. The intensity that I was in, I was no longer able to focus. I was no longer able to be efficient. 

Speaker 3: In your swimming technique. 

Speaker: In, in, in, no, not even the technique. At that point. It was efficient into not getting stung by fic. Okay. So then I'm like, okay, so I really need to kind of came from it place of thinking I know everything and I actually know nothing.

Mm-hmm. And so then I started being open to learning and being aware of what can I do to be ready for every situation that can be possible because then this turns into your everyday life, right? So if you aren't able to focus and if you aren't able to be efficient, you're gonna struggle throughout your day.

It's like how can you maintain that focus for 60 hours, in my case, for one of my swims? How do they remain focused throughout their day to be efficient? Because we end up doing what would take us an hour to do in the morning. A task, you're efficient, it's the morning you just woke up, you're alert in the evening.

That takes you an hour and a half. Now imagine you're starting [00:19:00] to lose efficiency. You're not sleeping enough, you're not resting enough, you're tired, you're burnt out, and you're starting your day inefficient. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Imagine you have a, a company, 10 employees, and they're all slightly tired and slightly burnt out.

They're working at 70%. So you've, you've lost 30% of your workforce. And 

Speaker 3: that's, I think, I think that's probably the norm, what you're talking about. 

Speaker: Yeah. This is standard, this is baseline. Right? This is baseline. Then it's who's, who's, uh, going lower than that. But it's tiring, right? When you're looking at that computer, at the end of the day, you're zoning out of it, like you're just looking at the screen and not being able to function.

And, uh, there are ways to fix it. 

Speaker 3: So where did you go to learn? Did, did these, uh, ways, these techniques of, of dealing with these kinds of issues? 

Speaker: Nowhere. My bedroom, my chair, sitting down with my eyes closed and trying to figure out, okay, if I need to learn how to focus, what can I do to focus? And then.

Through the courses that I'm doing, um, of, uh, breath work. I go to Holland to [00:20:00] Casper. Um, brilliant guy and he teaches us a lot of the science behind it. And then I'm going home and trying to understand, okay, how do I focus more? I created a practice of focus to focus, to be able to maintain that level of focus.

Speaker 3: And is this like a form of meditation? 

Speaker: It's a breathwork. It's a breathwork. 

Speaker 3: It's a 

Speaker: breathwork. Takes about seven minutes, obviously as more advance you go. You can make it 15, 20 minutes. And it's all about, um, doing the same sequence over and over again efficiently and effectively. 

Speaker 3: Can you take us through like how this works?

Speaker: So, so basically you'll, you'll inhale twice from your nose and exhale once from your mouth and you keep doing this in sequence. And what will happen over time? What you, you I started to see within myself is that. You get tired, you get distracted, and you start not breeding eff efficiently. So from breeding, inhaling strongly and exhaling strongly.

You're just, you're still doing it, but you're doing it inefficiently. Mm-hmm. So then it's to remain [00:21:00] present, to remain focused, to remain keeping the intensity of the breath up. 

Speaker 3: And with this kind of technique, would this be helpful for like anxiety and negative thoughts as well? 

Speaker: Yes, definitely. This is kind of like, it removes all the thoughts that you have in your, it's like it throws you, shoots you into a cloud right there.

There are certain holes as well where there, you'll hold your breath as well in between certain moments and each round that you do. So each time you do this exercise for two minutes, then hold your breath for 30 seconds. For one minute and a half breathing and then hold your breath for 45 seconds. And this can keep going up and up and up and up.

And each, the deeper you dive into the practice, the more, it's like a dopamine reset completely where you, you know, when you're on your laptop and it's like spasming out and not working anymore and the buttons don't work and you reset it and then it's like fresh. That's what's gonna happen to you. 

Speaker 3: And would this be the [00:22:00] pattern of breathing you would tend to maintain throughout the long swim as well?

Speaker: No, no. Throughout the long swim it's more, uh, normal breathing in and out from my mouth. 'cause you can't breathe in from your nose while you're, while you're swimming. Um, but there are certain, I kind of now know my body so well that I would do what I need in that moment. Sometimes it's like really inhaling as much air as I can, not exhaling any breathing in inhaling more, just expanding those lungs from it.

Always working at, in a, in a sequence. You know, it, it's, uh. That's my body's my operating system, and I need to be right tweaking, fine tuning, turning knobs and buttons to be able to keep me swimming for as long as possible. 

Speaker 3: And do you have a practice or a daily practice on, in terms of these kinds of breathing techniques?

Speaker: Yes, yes, yes. And there are about 10 different techniques. There's, there's, uh, 10 different sequences that I use and depending what the, 

Speaker 3: what the problem is or the 

Speaker: issue. Yeah, yeah. But it's kind of like, breath work is really a, it's really an amazing thing because especially when [00:23:00] you're sitting down, even me till today, there are days where I'm sitting down and I'm trying to meditate, not do any breath work, and it's tough.

Mm-hmm. It's not easy. And, and I can sit and meditate for quite a long time, but there are days where I'm like, uh, what am I doing it, should I, I should be doing my emails, I should be starting work. There are the kids outside and on their own, uh, what am I doing? You get up, you stand up, you don't do it.

Whereas breath work is a kind of like a moving meditation. So you're keeping yourself active and you're keeping your, your. Mind active through, through the meditation and breath work is, is all about presence, right? Your mind is the future, your heart is the past and breath. Your breath keeps you present.

So it's super powerful tool that we take advantage of or don't give as much importance of because it's free, 

Speaker 3: right? Yeah. Okay. For granted. 

Speaker: Yeah. If I give you this cup and tell, give you these wires, stick them to your head and say, listen, put this on for 20 minutes a day. It's 200 euro, uh, [00:24:00] 200 pounds a month subscription, and you're gonna be mentally much more stable.

Everyone's gonna be like, I need it. I need it. This is free. You carry it with you every day. And so there's always that option of later. 

Speaker 3: I definitely think that people take things for granted when they're free, whereas where if you have like a good marketing strategy and a snappy name. And some tech people are much more likely to splurge on it.

Speaker: A hundred percent. It, it, the one thing like that was got me to, to be more, more disciplined with myself when it came to this pr a practice or whatever it is that I feel I need to do to help me achieve more or remain focused or happier myself. Get achieving more. For me to be, to simply be happier was I had this, uh, theory that like if me and you are friends and we're planning to meet for a coffee at one o'clock, I, I turn up.

You don't turn up. 

Speaker 2: Mm. 

Speaker: We'll plan again. No worries, no problem. Next day we plan to meet one o'clock. You don't turn up again automatically. I would [00:25:00] like kind of remove myself from kind of trying to meet you because you didn't show up. But for us to ourselves, we tell ourselves to many things that we're going to do, but we don't do them.

So we don't show up for ourselves and we need to be. More respectful to ourselves to show up for ourselves more as we would want people to, the way we want people to respect us. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. This is something I get to at some point when I'm seeing clients for therapy, is relationship with self. So we talk about relationships with other people, and ideally you want a relationship with other people where it's like mutually, mutually beneficial.

You have accountability to each other. You do what you say you're gonna do, as you said. But often when it comes to ourselves, we do let each other, we do let ourselves down. We're also very harshly self-critical. So what I find, and maybe you can comment on this from your own experiences, some wants to do something.

They usually set themselves a goal, which is way too lofty, way too high. They try and make a couple of baby steps to [00:26:00] reach this ridiculous goal. Like they say, oh, I want land piano. I'm gonna be playing Mozart by the end of the day. They take a couple of baby steps, it doesn't work out, obviously, and then they parade themselves and say like, I'm never going to try this again.

Hearing your story, it sounds like you did kind of the opposite, where you're like, I'm gonna set myself a kind of achievable goal, not burden myself too much with what the overall trajectory might be and just see how things go. 

Speaker: Yeah. I think there's many layers of many of problems to setting yourself big targets.

I mean, I don't do it till today. If I'm gonna start preparing for my next swim tomorrow, I'm gonna go swim for 20 minutes. I am gonna end up swimming sessions of 24 hours nonstop training sessions. But I'm starting with 20 minutes because one, my body needs to adapt to this new skill that I'm learning.

'cause it's ultimately ends up being a new skill and to start to create the [00:27:00] foundations of the motivation and the discipline and the time required and the expertise required to develop this craft. 

Speaker 3: When we are talking about that, I don't feel like it feeling, which, you know, obviously I deal with as well.

The main way I get past that is by setting myself a micro goal. So if I really don't feel like going to the gym, I say, all you have to do is get to the gym, or maybe you get in the gym and you spend five minutes on the treadmill, and I'll allow myself to feel successful if I do that. And typically what happens is once you do that, then your dopamine is flowing and then you're like, okay, I'll do 10 minutes or 20 minutes.

You kind of almost trick yourself really into doing the things you're supposed to do by setting the barrier for success to be so low. 

Speaker: Yeah, definitely a hundred percent. Now that you're kind of bringing in success, I think what's important with it as well is no matter where you're looking for the successes, that when you reach these micro goals and when you reach these stepping stones to the bigger picture is [00:28:00] to stop and to celebrate and appreciate where you've come to because we get very easily carried away of.

Okay. We did it. We hit this targets, let's go next, next, next. Mm-hmm. But each time, you're not giving your that yourself that moment to reflect on where you've come and where you're at at that moment. Then your ceiling of capacity goes down. You're only interested in, you're not even you, you have no purpose hormones because you've actually hit this milestone.

Let's say someone wants to, wants to lose weight. Okay. So when someone hits 90, they're not even celebrating or giving them praise and it's 80 and then it's 70, and then it's 60, and then it's 55. What, whatever it is that what, what are you doing it for? And then if you don't, so for you to be able to do it in the long term and for you to be able to make it a part of your lifestyle mm-hmm.

There has to be long-term purpose in it. 

Speaker 3: How much time do you take off in between big swims typically 

Speaker: Three months. 

Speaker 3: Three months. Okay. 

Speaker: Three months. No swimming, [00:29:00] no nothing. And 

Speaker 3: you think that's very important to totally abstain from swimming in those times? 

Speaker: Yes, because if I'm not really fully recovering and fully resting, uh, then I again feel like the ceiling of my capacity goes down.

Right. And then if I'm, because I put myself in this position of. Not swimming for three months now. It's really hard to go. Yeah. It's not, I'm trying to take, get myself to start swimming and I can't. Each time it's like, ah, there'll be tomorrow. You know, again, like everyone else, it's very normal to knowing you wanna do something and you still don't do it.

Speaker 3: Do you miss swimming in those three month periods at all? 

Speaker: I, I definitely miss it. Uh, definitely. But when I'm training for something like this, everything else in my life is pushed away. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: And, and people, I love, people I love spending time with, people I enjoy, uh, things I enjoy doing as well. It's just one track mind, [00:30:00] one focus, because nothing can come in the way of me doing what I need to do.

So I, there's no no social life whatsoever. There's not going to meet you for a drink. For a drink. I don't, I don't really drink, but go and meet you for a coffee at 8:00 PM no way. 8:00 PM I have my evening routine already started. 

Speaker 3: Right? So I guess the lesson there is if you want to, uh, achieve something totally extraordinary, you need extraordinary focus and extraordinary exclusion of anything that can get in the way 

Speaker: for my craft.

Yes. Um, but it doesn't have to be so extreme as well, right? I'm just, uh, 

Speaker 3: it depends on your goals. 

Speaker: I'm pushing the boundaries of the human capacity. 

Speaker 3: If you're pushing the boundaries of human capacity, 

Speaker: then certain things need to happen around that to support it. 

Speaker 3: So, I mean, you've done a few crazy swims swimming, obviously starting around mota, around gozo to si and most recently the Gozo seven, which she completed last September, if I'm not [00:31:00] mistaken, swimming around Gozo seven times in seven days.

Which of these do you think was the toughest swim for you? 

Speaker: I think they, they were both very different. So let's take the 142 kilometers, 60 hours nonstop swimming, no touching the boat, no resting, no flotation device compared to swimming around gozo 42 kilometers every day for seven days whilst doing a million things and mean in between one swim and the other.

In terms of the, the, the 

Speaker 3: testing, 

Speaker: yeah, the testing and stuff like that, I think the 60 hours nonstop definitely hits a higher peak, but the seven days then hit hits multiple peaks where you every day need to go through that same process of. Pushing past the physical to get to the mental part of things, and so that each day as you get, um, sleep deprived, tired, the, the, the mountain is harder to climb over.

Whereas in the first swim, it's kind of like, okay, no worries. [00:32:00] This is kind of routine. I was losing the capacity to be able to, to use the skills that I've learned through my mindset to be able to overcome certain obstacles. So then I was once again, like I was back in 2018, spiraling within certain, certain things.

During 

Speaker 3: the Gozo seven. 

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, because then I was getting burnt out. The whole point of it was to purposely put myself into this intense space and understand what is happening when you are overdoing it, when you're burnt out, when you're tired, everyone, it's representing everyone's day really, and putting myself willingly in that situation to understand the.

Speaker 3: The point was kind of to fail in a way. 

Speaker: Yes, yes. Definitely. To push literally how difficult can I make it, 

Speaker 3: which is quite liberating because I guess most people are so obsessed with success and failure is like this demon, they're trying to stay away from as much as possible. It must have been quite liberating to say, actually, let's just see where the limit is, where it happens to be.[00:33:00] 

Speaker: Yeah. And like I have a theory on this failure and why everyone is so, 

Speaker 3: okay. Yeah. 

Speaker: Um, uh, 

Speaker 3: I have a, I have a couple of theories. I'd love to hear yours. 

Speaker: Um, my theory is coming from our childhood, 

Speaker 3: okay. 

Speaker: From us being in school. You fail an exam teacher, you should be ashamed of yourself. You get home, you get punished.

University or levels A levels you don't do, you don't make it. All of a sudden there's already a, I didn't do it, I didn't achieve that. Even, even a job. Right. We are kind of conditioned that it's a bad thing. 

Speaker 3: Yes. 

Speaker: That doesn't give us the opportunity to understand what growth can come from, from failing from when we're kids.

So then all of a sudden, you're not trying to do your master's degree or apply for a, a promotion in within your office because you start to be conscious about what others would think about you if you failed. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. That's a, it's a mark on your reputation. 

Speaker: I know. But we, we we're creating this space where we don't go and [00:34:00] achieve our dreams because of this 'cause of this.

Speaker 3: So I guess you're saying there's a. Culture, we've created a culture of failure. Aver, of course. And to fail in public is like the worst thing you could do. 

Speaker: Yeah. 'cause that's what we're told. It's at school. Yeah. We're told if you failed, it's the worst thing you could have done in your whole year. 

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Repeatedly. Uh, my, my theory is kind of similar to your theory, which is, you know, if you think about human beings spend most of human history in small tribes of around 150 people typically remaining with that tribe for your whole life. And so if you do make a mistake, everyone's gonna be aware that you've made that mistake for the whole rest of your life.

And it's gonna affect what your social status happens to be in that tribe. So in a way it's kind of makes sense from that perspective to be quite, uh, private with your failures if you can be. But the tragedy is in the modern world where you can go to different places, you can travel, uh, you can interact with so many different people, your failures don't have to mean anything.

You can [00:35:00] fail, uh, in one context and that failure can make you better. And then you can, you take that and succeed in a totally different context. There's way too much information anyway. People will forget. And so, but we still have this hangover, I think, from the past where like, if I fail in front of my tribe, I'm gonna lose standing and then people aren't gonna respect me.

And you see a lot of people laboring under this sphere. 

Speaker: It's, it's crazy how we are move in a way that we feel should be accepted by other people. And this comes from social media. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. I mean, our social media definitely amplifies 

Speaker: because then we're all obviously want to portray ourselves in a certain way and then living a different way.

And so then it's completely mismatches and makes life a lot harder. 

Speaker 3: You've obviously done a lot of stuff to, you know, you've learned specific techniques to help with your mental health in the context of these events. But do you think naturally you're the kind of person who is quite easygoing and ready to try [00:36:00] something and ready to fail and, and to not take that too seriously?

Speaker: Um, now, yes. Before now, 

Speaker 3: what is it? What is it like Before, 

Speaker: I think I was a normal person in the same loops and the same cycles of society as everyone else. So I wasn't exactly an overachiever at school. It was very difficult for me to sit still. Even over here, it's difficult for me to sit still. And, uh, I was always pushed into this like, you, you always need to pass everything you do.

You're not allowed, you shouldn't fail. It's, it's how it, how it, how, how my perception of failure was as well, you know? And then it was like that until I actually failed. And then in front of everyone, in front of, while the whole world was watching, while Malta was watching and. It helps me be who I am today.

So I don't think the ocean mindset would have existed. I don't think this whole brand of Nila juice would have existed. I don't think the [00:37:00] lessons and the obsession of trying to biohack and find ways to uplevel and upscale our everyday life through our own body would never exist. 

Speaker 3: So the, so the fact that that failure happened for you and maybe previous difficulties at school kind of set you free in a way?

Speaker: Yeah, you could say that. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: They, you know, in your last swim in the GOSO seven, they studied you really closely. There was a psych, a psychiatrist, and a team following you. How were they monitoring your mental health and your resilience during the goso seven? 

Speaker: After every swim, I would do a QB test. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Speaker: Um, basically you're looking at a screen white screen with four shapes, like a blue circle, a red circle, a blue triangle, and a red triangle. And this would constantly change. Uh, every second or so, and you need to press the space bar every time the same color and shape appeared they were doing that and conversations as well.

Um, mood tests and all, all the kind [00:38:00] of tests that it, it was really interesting what was very difficult to do. I, yeah, I must have been, I was swimming for 15 hours, sleeping for three. I was falling asleep in the QB test 

Speaker 3: and I, I think 

Speaker: they, I think the worst score you could ever get. I got it. 

Speaker 3: Nice. Um, I think they said, um, in the report that based on that testing you may have, uh, A DHD like traits.

Is that right? 

Speaker: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: And you said earlier that maybe you had difficulty sitting still at school and test taking and studying. So that didn't surprise you when they told you that 

Speaker: It'll always surprise you, right. Because it wasn't black on white. It was my assumptions to now so much awareness being there about it.

Yeah. Um, but. Since I found out or since I was diagnosed, it hasn't made me think twice of how I should be in certain situations at all. Didn't even, doesn't even cross my mind. 

Speaker 3: Right. So it's not, it doesn't sound like those traits are getting in your way much. 

Speaker: I mean, I've created systems [00:39:00] around them, whatever they wear or whatever it was or whatever the issue is.

Mm-hmm. Their systems are there, they're in place and always fine tuning and changing. Yes, obviously, but not because I have a DHD and it's because I want to do something and I need to learn the steps and process of how to best achieve that. 

Speaker 3: So you know what you want. You, you figure out what do I want to get?

How do I reverse engineer that? 

Speaker: Yeah, exactly. And that's how, what I do with my swims, it's like how do I think of every situation that might come, I might come up against and prepare myself and create this technique that is gonna help me in that moment. 

Speaker 3: One question I have is, I mean, it must feel dangerous and kind of risky quite a lot during those swims, but what worries you?

What things like really concern you? 

Speaker: I mean, it's risky to a certain extent, right? It's very controlled in terms of, for me, people jumping out of a plane. It's very risky, but they, they're trained for it and they know what they're doing. And it's the same with me. The only difference is that I'm in the sea, I'm in the [00:40:00] ocean, and there are predators, there are sharks, there are things that can go very wrong, and when things go very wrong, then you're also in the middle of two countries.

Yeah, so the team, the team that we have is like 30 people. There's doctors, emergency doctors. Um, weather, routers, feeders, motivators as a whole setup, uh, going, going into it. 

Speaker 3: And how are they monitoring your physical health, uh, during the swims? 

Speaker: I mean, it's conversational, right? Uh, the doctors have been with me for seven years now.

Right. So they know and they can see the warning signs of when I'm starting to hallucinate. And obviously I'm very transparent with them and I tell them I'm hallucinating and I tell them what's happening so they can best help me in that situation as well. 

Speaker 3: And that's considered, you know, part and parcel of the process that you may hallucinate?

Speaker: Ah, yeah. No, definitely. I mean, you're awake for 50 hours 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: While working out, while constantly holding a breathing pattern. It's not, no way. It's not gonna happen. 

Speaker 3: Are there any, like physical signs that would worry you, like [00:41:00] chest pain or undue shortness of breath, or any specific signs that would be, would that would make you think this swim needs to stop?

Speaker: Not really. I think it's always the, again, it feels like the mental will always. Push you to stop before 

Speaker 3: Mm. 

Speaker: You can really hurt yourself. I mean, so far, and also I'm, I'm my two feet are on this planet as well. So if I feel like this is no longer safe, then I won't carry on swimming. I have responsibilities, right?

Mm-hmm. To being the correct role model in every aspect of life. Not just the guy who can swim forever and doesn't stop and will never stop. No. When, when we need to stop, when it's no longer safe, we stop. 

Speaker 3: It sounds like a lot of pressure to, to be this, uh, role model, which, you know, it happens when you achieve great things that comes with responsibilities, I guess.

Speaker: Yeah. And in the beginning I felt it was a lot of pressure, but ultimately I'm not, I'm just [00:42:00] being me. I'm not trying to be a role model. Um, just do what I do in the way that I feel I want to do it, and if people think it's interesting and can inspire them and kind inspired them. Influence them in some way, then, then so be it.

I'm not here to influence you. I'm here to live my life and I live my life my own way and the best way I can for myself. And if that can help and inspire people, then that's, that's an amazing feeling, but it's not a responsibility. 

Speaker 3: I think that's probably a good way to think about it in my line of work.

Often there's the sense of, to what extent do you take responsibility for your client or patient's wellbeing? And I think it's a similar tension to what you described, where obviously it's a bit more hands-on in my case. Um, but you can't take on all the responsibility for your client because they have responsibilities as well.

They have to do certain things. They have to be proactive about their own recovery or their own improvement. Um, so it's kind of a fine line to walk where you do your best to. I kind [00:43:00] of think about it as opening windows of opportunity for your client to walk through. Mm-hmm. But ultimately they have to walk through it.

So it's kind of a shared responsibility in a way. 

Speaker: It has to be, but it's also like I was having this conversation with, uh, my physiotherapist, uh, Matthew, like how many, how many clients come in with an injury and they're really determined that they want to get better quickly. They kind of do the treatments, whatever they're doing, they give them exercises to do at home, five minutes with the bands or whatever it is.

How many actually do them. So how many do the exercises that you are giving your clients at home? 

Speaker 3: Not enough. 

Speaker: I I I, if you have to give it a percentage, what I think 10%. 

Speaker 3: I always give it 10 to 30%. It depends. 

Speaker: It's hard. People sometimes I don't do them as well. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: When, you know, you understand what I mean.

And the, the stakes can be very high and, uh, life gets in the way and I don't do them. And I can understand the stakes and the [00:44:00] importance of doing them maybe on different levels to the average person. So imagine the average person. I'm just, I was just curious like, like what he thought was, he thought it was much higher than 10 to 30.

Speaker 3: Well, I don't, I don't know. I think until people often, until people try something out for themselves and they see the result in a very tangible way, it's very hard to, to motivate the, sometimes obviously some clients, they're ready, you barely have to tell them anything, and you lay out a few guidelines and a few frameworks, and they basically take care of everything themselves.

And then other clients just need a lot more work and a lot more input and a lot more, uh, persuasion, for lack of a better word, that some, some techniques would be really useful for them. 

Speaker: Yeah. I, I, I like the way that people have to try, people like to try before they kind of buy or take home rather. Yeah.

Um, it's important to give people experiences. And let them make their own conclusions from it. 

Speaker 3: Picking up on something you said earlier, do you think that's, in our [00:45:00] culture, we feel that everything has to kind of feel good all the time. Earlier you said, you know it's okay for something to feel terrible and that's a part of life.

Do you think we're in a culture that's become quite averse to things being, you know, difficult, painful, unpleasant, therefore people are shying away from certain things and restricting themselves? 

Speaker: Yeah. Yes, definitely a hundred percent. But I also feel like they don't feel it's adding value to them because again, like I'm quite big on this, like they can't really share it.

So then it has no value. 

Speaker 3: Right. 

Speaker: They 

Speaker 3: can't share their pain, you mean 

Speaker: share their pain, share their difficulty, or share their vulnerability or share their moment of weakness because then they are no longer. Seen in a certain way. Yeah. Which is again, their perception. Right. 

Speaker 3: And conflating pain and suffering with failure, and failure also being seen as this terrible thing that he should avoid at the whole time.

Speaker: Yeah, pretty much. 

Speaker 3: Um, what have been some of the most [00:46:00] challenging moments, dark moments during swims for you? Do you think? 

Speaker: It's, it's obviously very difficult to, to pinpoint, but when you are 40 plus hours into a swim, 50 plus hours into a swim, you're hallucinating, you're in rough weather and every kind of thought in your body and every muscle, every thought in your mind, and every muscle in your body is kind of telling you to stop and you start to question the, the safety of it.

The question the. How possible was it this, this idea of yours? 'cause ultimately it's not like I'm gonna go and do this race and sign up for this race. We've created our own thing. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: Something that doesn't, you write your own program, something that's never done before. So like, was this a stupid idea?

Maybe I kind of overshot it and then it's not actually possible to do. And then it's kind of like lots of, you know, one step after the other. But now I have these [00:47:00] tools, now I can breed through it. I can do a, a breeding technique that can help me stop this train of thought of patterns. And so then I can take decisions from the right place.

Because the worst thing you can do as an individual is be in a difficult situation, thinking about what's gonna happen later because of the situation you're in and think you're gonna take the right decision, not gonna happen. 

Speaker 3: Making decisions from a place of panic. 

Speaker: Yeah. And, but how, but if they don't know, they're not aware that they're even panicking almost.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. The panic feels like reality. 

Speaker: Yeah. So how do they bring themselves back into, okay, I'm here, my feet are on the ground and I need to kind of solve the issue here and I won't even get to that problem there, but we're too worried about what's gonna happen later. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. And then conversely, what have been some of the most special moments for you during swims?

Speaker: I think the connection with the ocean, connection with the moon, the sun nature. [00:48:00] I, I get to be in nature for obscene amounts of time. We all know that's hanging, that spending five minutes looking at the sea or five minutes in nature just helps your mental health. Imagine immersing yourself for 60 hours in it.

The cliffs and gozo, the, the, those solid cliffs. Like they, they were very powerful to me during the the Swim 'cause they were always. They were always there. They were solid. They never moved. No matter how rough things got, they're always there and kind of like tuning into to that and saying, you know what, I'm always here as well.

I'm here as well and I'm strong and I can keep swimming and I can keep doing it. 

Speaker 3: And having done all these swims does, does that make the, the daily frustrations and the crazy abstract things we worry about day to day like taxes or punctuality or meeting other people's obligations, do those kind of daily frustrations seem trivial to you?

Uh, having done swims like that? 

Speaker: No, 'cause I'm part of them [00:49:00] get full back 

Speaker 3: in. 

Speaker: You don't get to skip all that just 'cause you see him for 60 hours. 

Speaker 3: Is there a great period where after, you know, I'm just don't gonna worry about anything for two weeks? 

Speaker: Um, it depends how quickly I need to get back to doing certain things.

It's just accepting those, that being a part of reality of life. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: And the accepting, 

Speaker 3: accepting anything that comes Painful, pleasant. 

Speaker: Yeah, definitely. I think, um, you know, you mentioned like all the trivial things. It's, it's part of life and not to have them, you, you're not being, 

Speaker 3: I guess, engaged. 

Speaker: Yes.

You're not, you're not being engaged. But also 

Speaker 3: on the flip side, those things can take up too much of our mental space and 

Speaker: Yeah. But but then you're obsessing about them. Mm-hmm. So once it's one thing, they're there, it's another thing that they become your, you're, you're obsession to avoiding them. 'cause you're, you're trying to not not be part of that, but it's obviously part of life as we're saying.

Yeah. And so then you're actually giving them more time than you [00:50:00] need to. So then it's stressful. 

Speaker 3: It's about finding that balance, I guess. 

Speaker: Yeah. Balance is a big word. 

Speaker 3: I've heard you talk a little bit about the ocean mindset. What do you think are the main. Pillars of the ocean mindset. 

Speaker: Yeah. So there's the breadth.

There is, uh, community and there's, uh, mindset as well. I think that the three of them go really well together. They're very, they're, it's a pathway to self-development. So if anyone wants to improve their life and they're not sure how, there are different entry points through the ocean mindset of, uh, being able to level up and, uh, improve or start a journey of self-development.

Mm-hmm. I mean, self-development is a, it's a such a beautiful thing because like the analogy to it is like video games that kids play or anyone plays, like, the more you play, the more you get like potions and weapons and coats and whatever they get. It's the same as, uh, [00:51:00] self-development. The more you play in the game of self-development, the more you are given.

Shields and weapons through your own body, you know, you feel stronger, you eat better, you, you feel stronger, you sleep more, you're more focused. You exercise, you get the dopamine. Everything is just one, one off the other. And what these swims taught me is that there's no high is to high. There's always the next one.

There's always higher, you know? Uh, but then there's no low is too low. And as low as you think you are, you can dig yourself further the down. Yeah. 

Speaker 3: And you have to figure out a way to be kind of open to both, I guess. 

Speaker: Yeah. It's both. It's part of life, both part 

Speaker 3: of life. 

Speaker: We can't always be in the area. Fairy life's great kind of vibe.

It's life is a rollercoaster. And that's, that's how it is. And that's what's beautiful about it as well. 

Speaker 3: So you're almost like in these swims, you're creating a kind of microcosm of life, which has its ups and downs, and you're creating this set period of time where you have huge [00:52:00] highs. Huge lows and experiencing all of this drama within a very, like, specified period of time.

Speaker: Yeah. And, and a lot of commitment to, to success as well. Yeah. Not success to, to doing what we said we would do. 

Speaker 3: Persistence. 

Speaker: Yeah. And, and the team relies on each other. I rely on them at moments when I'm struggling and they rely on me when they're struggling. And it's like a, a beautiful synergy of how it works.

Speaker 3: Something I heard, uh, where your psychiatrist who was in the team was being interviewed and he said, actually when you'd come on the boat, you'd actually gain a lot of energy from leading others. I'm motivating others. And he'd be kind of a rock for them, but that is also helping you in those moments.

Speaker: Yeah. Um, I'm the team leader, right? So I need to be there, present for them. And it's not about me swimming, this is just a byproduct of it, but. And, but it's also about everyone who's part of this team to get something out of it as [00:53:00] well. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: So they, they feel like they learned something or they feel like they are more inspired.

And it's important that everyone in the team gets that moment of that feeling of, it was amazing to be a part of this team because I took something from it. So I need to make sure that it's not about me and everything comes about me. 'cause then they miss their moment. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. So you, you, you all get the chance to be a part of something bigger.

Speaker: Exactly. 

Speaker 3: What do you think the why is for you now at this point? 

Speaker: I think now it's kind of, uh, enjoy putting myself in these extreme situations because when I'm in these extreme situations, then I'm at this like, maximum, this is where I thrive, where I can learn the most about myself and learn the most about whatever comes through at that moment.

And then. Being able to transfer that into everyday learnings for everyone. So it's like, you don't need to swim for 60 hours. I'll do it and I'll figure out what [00:54:00] I learned from it and I'm gonna share it with everyone. 

Speaker 3: You must, uh, provide a lot of inspiration to a lot of people. Do you hear from them a lot?

The people contact you and tell them how, like you've changed their lives? 

Speaker: Yes, yes. I get quite often get messages online and it's kind of, it's the reason why we do it, you know? Mm-hmm. So for someone to reach out and say, listen, you saved my life. My life was going in the total opposite direction, but I came across your story and I followed you, and now my life is in the opposite direction.

I mean. If I can do that to one person in my entire life, then it's worth doing these swims. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. You're saying, you know, I'm making the most of my potential, which is way more than I thought. Which means everyone can say, oh, maybe I have some potential that I can make the most of as well. 

Speaker: Yeah, but I don't think anything.

It's whatever they attach themselves to from the swim, whatever is that. It doesn't have to be, 'cause I'm doing this crazy thing, it's, I think it's 'cause I show up or because I did another one or because, 

Speaker 3: right. 

Speaker: They watched this video of me swimming in rough sea and [00:55:00] that's what it was. It doesn't have to be.

For them to read. Doesn't 

Speaker 3: have to be a huge achievement. 

Speaker: It doesn't have to be about always potential and this and that. It's just they took something that clicked in their mind that changed something that maybe they were an alcoholic and are no longer an alcoholic. Wow. Well done. That's 

Speaker 3: huge. 

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker 3: People can make those gains. 

Speaker: Yeah. So it's not always about performing better or Right thing. It's about something that helped them. Maybe they went for a walk every day for the next two years after they saw me swim. 

Speaker 3: And that's kind of what I mean when I talk about the relationship between mental health and performance and that I think they're kind of a spectrum where at one end you have high end performance and on at the other end just taking care of your mental health and doing the things that help you live a higher quality of life.

I don't think they're separate. I think they're on this, uh, continuous spectrum and just watching you perform at that high level can help people take those basic steps. Yeah. And they are, they are basic steps to living a life that they're happy with. 

Speaker: Yeah. And this is what gives me the fuel to almost, it's like.

A [00:56:00] responsibility to keep swimming maybe. 

Speaker 3: Mm. 

Speaker: If I can help so many people, why wouldn't I? 

Speaker 3: One thing I was wondering when I was researching this is obviously you do a lot of, um, breath work. Uh, is, uh, are visualization techniques something you've used at all? 

Speaker: Yeah. Yes, definitely. 

Speaker 3: Can you talk to me a little bit about the visualization techniques you use?

Speaker: Um, uh, basically one of the, the main components of me visualizing is not only visualizing the good. 

Speaker 3: Mm. 

Speaker: Because we always, yes, I'm visualize myself walking up on the beach, but I need to visualize myself coming face to face with a shark, 

Speaker 3: right? And how will I respond in that situation? 

Speaker: So then you're one step ahead.

So it's like, uh, visualization, visualizing the whole process. 

Speaker 3: Have you ever read the book Psycho-Cybernetics? No. So this is 

Speaker: definitely not, 

Speaker 3: so there's this book called Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxalt, and it's fascinating. I think he'd like it because it's written by a plastic surgeon in the fifties, and he was one of the first people to come up with this idea of body image.

So like, we have a body, right? [00:57:00] But we also have the image of our body that we have in our heads. On the back of that, he developed a lot of visualization techniques, which is basically priming your body physiologically for success. So if you're about to try and perform. Uh, picturing your bo picturing success so that when you start, your nervous system has the expectation that you're going to do that you're going to perform well, and therefore your body is primed to perform well.

This is something I've used in public speaking, but I think similar to you, what I did with my visualizations is aside from visualizing things going well, I also would visualize flubbing a line, but then recovering and doing okay and not having to be a big deal to make the performance a little bit less fragile.

Speaker: Yeah, no, no, definitely. I think it's, it's good because if you create this perfect picture. And the perfect picture isn't being painted, then you have nothing to rely on. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Nothing to fall back on. 

Speaker 3: It becomes too, uh, perfectionistic, I guess. 

Speaker: Yeah. But [00:58:00] visualization of of is, is very powerful. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: And it's something I want to start, uh, visualization journeys as well.

Speaker 3: Yeah. I would check out this book. I think you'd find it interesting. Outside of swimming, what, what do you enjoy? What do you enjoy the most? 

Speaker: Um, spending time with my partner. Um, we're about to have a baby in a couple of weeks as well, so that's a really amazing space at home. And learning to play instruments, learning new ways to breed more functional breeding.

What, how can I, like, it's really kind of just tuning into my body. It's like, it's like a hobby of mine. Feeling the intuition. Like there's a, I have a practice of intuition that's very strong. We, we, we take our intuition for, for granted. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: Of how valuable it is and how powerful it is. 

Speaker 3: So a practice of, uh, tuning into and leaning into your intuition.

Speaker: Uh, yes. Doing, feeling, feeling your body more. When people come up to you and tell you, I woke up sick. I dunno how that happened there. Your [00:59:00] body's giving you warning signs. You're not in tuned enough to be able to, to feel them has a lot of value that we, we throw out the window. 

Speaker 3: Absolutely. That's like, that's a huge component of, um, gest gestalt psychotherapy.

So it's a kind of psychotherapy that came up in response to, so the first kind of psychotherapy was psychoanalysis, and that's very intellectual and we're analyzing the words that you're saying and making a big deal out of that. To counter that, this other kind of therapy called gestalt psychotherapy.

Um, came about, which was like, let's focus on the body. 'cause your body is gonna be giving you all sorts of really important signals as to what's going on, but also what you should do and how you should respond to a situation. And often as people go through life, they become much more cut off from the neck down.

They don't pay attention to your body, to their body as they say. And that it sounds kind of, does it airy fairy? Does it make a difference? But actually it makes people make really poor decisions. 

Speaker: No, it definitely, [01:00:00] those definitely makes a difference. I, I move with my intuition a lot during these swims, moving my intuition through my businesses, move it, it's kind of like my, my moral compass as well.

So it's, it's very powerful. And so I created this practice where it kind of starts to get tuned of like, okay, this is my body and this is what I'm feeling. What is feeling? What are you feeling when you're holding your breath in this moment, when you're not, when you're creating space, just being attuned more to, to your body.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: That you have to kind of carry with you everywhere. Right. It's your operating system. 

Speaker 3: Absolutely. And again, we tend to, I think there's something about living in a technological society where we like to pretend we're not animals, and maybe we're these high rational aliens who, you know, we've conquered our biology.

But obviously that's not the case. And all we do actually is ignore our biology a lot of the time and gets us into the whole mess of problematic situations. 

Speaker: Yeah, agreed. 

Speaker 3: Fatherhood, how are you feeling about becoming a father? 

Speaker: [01:01:00] I'm feeling really good about it. I'm really excited about the taking these next steps.

I think one of the things I'm excited about is being in situations with Lara, my partner, where we both looking at each other not knowing what we need to do, and together taking a decision and there's no right decision and there's no wrong decision, but we together need to come up with a decision making, uh, whether we're gonna take a left or right.

Speaker 3: Yeah. 

Speaker: The situation that we're gonna be in, so. Uh, very excited to be going into this next phase of life. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, if you love challenges, guess what? You're gonna have lots of challenges coming up soon. 

Speaker: Do you have any children? 

Speaker 3: I don't, I don't have children yet. But that's, you know, it's something I've been thinking about a lot as I get older and I think, like you say, I, I look forward to the.

The challenge and the collaborative problem solving of it. 

Speaker: Yeah. And, and it's interesting because like if a hundred people have to come up to me and tell me something about becoming a father, most of them are tell, are, are [01:02:00] all in almost the negative. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: They're like, ah, get ready for it. Ah, you're not gonna sleep.

Ah, this is gonna be our biggest challenge. Where, 

Speaker 3: but they don't know who they're talking to. 

Speaker: No, no. It's not only like, it's more like the psychological side of it. Like that is what people portray and that is what is spoken about. But what about all the amazing moments you had through those struggles as well?

You know, and those are not spoken about, so. It's always like, now it's taken that to become a parent is like going to be the most intense experience of your life. I'm sure it is. 

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. 

Speaker: But it's gonna be also the most beautiful experience and nobody talks about that. 

Speaker 3: And I would argue you're way more prepared than the average bet.

'cause those swims are those like a lot of difficulty, but then those amazing transcendent moments in between. 

Speaker: Yeah. Tho those swims are my moral compass to my everyday, not only becoming a father, like situations that I come and like, okay, when I'm in such an intense space there, what am I doing? I'm doing this, so then I'm gonna do that here.[01:03:00] 

Speaker 3: In terms of swimming, what's next for you? 

Speaker: I don't really know. I don't think that like, like I said, there's never really a plan. If I feel. Like, I want to swim more, swim again, swim further, swim a different way. Like this time it really wasn't about breaking a world record because breaking a world record, don't get me wrong, it's amazing.

Like it's there, you have 

Speaker 3: your own goals. 

Speaker: Yeah, I mean it's, it's, it's amazing and it's thing, but, and it's what people are attracted to. So like it's, I almost important to be able to do that so more people can see, so more people can get inspired. But ultimately whether I'm going to break a world record or not has not that much significance to me.

Speaker 3: I guess what we would say is you're intrinsically motivated. You're motivated by what's important to you. 

Speaker: I'm basically interested in trying to do, say swim 160 kilometers. 

Speaker 3: Mm. 

Speaker: And now if that happens to break a world record, so be, it's so weird, but it's not, I'm going to break the swim 160 kilometers, break a world record.

I'm doing this for other reasons and that's kind of like, [01:04:00] comes with it. 

Speaker 3: Well, while you continue to do that, will, uh, continue to get inspired. Mm-hmm. By it. I'm sure. Neil, where can people find out more about your work and the stuff you do? 

Speaker: Um, yeah, so we can visit my Instagram page. It's Neil Aju and, uh, Neil Aju is my website as well, which we're kind of restructuring now to be able to give people a more holistic journey on it as well.

Speaker 3: Wonderful. I'm just gonna read a quick, uh, accept from the report that they wrote about you, which I thought was really poignant. Neil is a natural team player and leader who motivates those around him and inspires others to achieve beyond their perceived limits. He consistently challenges himself and others questioning conventional limits, and it remains unclear whether he has truly reached his physical or psychological potential in his ultra distance swims.

We look forward to seeing what's next from you. Neil, thank you so much for coming on. 

Speaker: Thank you. Thank you very [01:05:00] much.